Dan Kowalski on Immigration Law and Policy tag:ijjblog.org,2011:/blog-mt/dan//2 2011-10-17T02:35:26Z This space, written by immigration attorney Dan Kowalski, will be devoted to putting immigration matters in perspective. Dan also will offer his opinions to stimulate discussion and to offer policy alternatives. He will respond to questions in “Ask Dan: Q and A.” And Kowalski also will aggregates top immigration stories, which will be posted near the bottom of this column under “Media Reports on Immigration. Movable Type 3.2ysb5-20051201 Beyond the Alabama Law, It's the Looks tag:ijjblog.org,2011:/blog-mt/dan//2.2093 2011-10-15T20:29:35Z 2011-10-17T02:35:26Z October 16, 2011. By Dan Kowalski Even if H.B. 56, Alabama's tough new immigration law, is struck down by the federal courts - an outcome made more likely by an interim ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the... Dan Kowalski www.bibdaily.com October 16, 2011.

By Dan Kowalski

Even if H.B. 56, Alabama's tough new immigration law, is struck down by the federal courts - an outcome made more likely by an interim ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit - irreversible damage to the state's Latino population already may have been done.

Consider these comments in a recent news report (AP, Oct. 15, 2011) -

"Nelly Tadeo, a legal U.S. resident from Mexico, said she notices icy stares in Walmart and feels like whites and blacks are wondering if she is legal and pays taxes.  “Even if the law gets canceled, Alabama is not going to be the same. Now, people are just looking at you like, ‘You’re an illegal immigrant,’” said Tadeo. “I think that’s permanent. A lot of people never thought about who was illegal, who was legal before. Now that’s what they’re thinking about.”"

Alabama, devastated by the tornadoes in Tuscaloosa and elsewhere, needs every able-bodied worker to help rebuild.  But construction firm owners report that the fear generated by the Alabama law has driven away even fully documented workers.

The state's agricultural sector has been hit hard as well.  John McMillan, Alabama's Commissioner of Agriculture and Industries, reported crops rotting in the fields for lack of workers.  When farmers try to replace immigrant workers with locals, most of  the new hands leave the job by lunch. 

Many Latinos will stay in Alabama, due to family, school and business ties.  Some will suffer in silence, but on Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2011, many immigrant-owned businesses closed in boycott to protest the law and to illustrate the importance of Latinos to the state's economy.

Others will join the exodus, "refugees," if you will, not from the violence or poverty south of the border, but from the legal cold-shoulder H.B. 56 represents.  Immediately following the issuance of the Eleventh Circuit's order, Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez, (D-IL-4) posted a press release on his website offering a welcome to Chicago "as a suitable destination to anyone choosing to flee Alabama."

"I offer anyone in Alabama an alternative.  When Alabama was not a viable location for African-American families to raise their children back 40, 50 and 60 years ago, many came north to my city of Chicago as part of the Great Migration and revitalized and reinvented Chicago.  Already, as Hispanic families are seeing no future for themselves in Alabama regardless of their immigration status or even U.S. citizenship, we are seeing some follow the same trail from Alabama to Chicago.  We need all the good, hardworking, and conscientious people we can get in Chicago so Alabama's loss is our gain."

Is this the wave of the future, Latinos being driven from state to state, all being made to feel unwelcome due to the legal status of some?  Here's looking at you, Alabama.

]]> Border Security After 9/11: Ten Years of Waste, Immigrant Crackdowns and New Drug Wars tag:ijjblog.org,2011:/blog-mt/dan//2.2091 2011-09-12T15:27:38Z 2011-09-12T22:28:06Z Dan Kowalski www.bibdaily.com "In his groundbreaking 2001 study of border enforcement, "Border Games: Policing the U.S.-Mexico Divide," border scholar Peter Andreas rightly observed that border policing has "some of the features of a ritualized spectator sport," noting that the game metaphor reflects the "performance and audience-driven nature" of the politics of border control. As the politics of border security in Texas and Arizona so well illustrate, "secure the border" is a rallying cry that energizes constituencies, catapults politicians to office and produces a steady stream of Fox News appearances for prominent border security hawks. It also diverts the debate over border policies far away from any reflective discussion of the structural causative factors producing the border crisis."

TOM BARRY in Truthout, Sept. 11, 2011. ]]> Complaints Of Legal Fraud Against Immigrants On Rise tag:ijjblog.org,2011:/blog-mt/dan//2.2089 2011-09-12T15:01:42Z 2011-09-12T22:03:00Z Dan Kowalski www.bibdaily.com "Complaints of fraudulent and unethical legal advice that can result in the deportation of immigrants are becoming more common in Iowa, according to a state official and immigration attorneys."

JENS MANUEL KROGSTAD in the Des Moines Register, Sept. 11, 2011. ]]> Business Owners Sue Over H-2B Prevailing Wage Hikes tag:ijjblog.org,2011:/blog-mt/dan//2.2087 2011-09-12T14:15:43Z 2011-09-12T21:16:05Z Dan Kowalski www.bibdaily.com "If he cannot hire guest workers, he said, the chain of lost jobs and income for local people would run back to the alligator and crawfish farmers whose crops he would not process and forward to the restaurants that serve his products. That sequence is what Louisiana employers said they hope to avert with the lawsuit. “This is a showstopper,” said Frank Randol, who runs a crawfish business and a Cajun restaurant in Lafayette and represents the Crawfish Processors Alliance, one group in the suit. “In 40 years I’ve been in this business, we’ve faced just about everything,” he said, “but now we are facing our own government trying to shut us down.”"

JULIA PRESTON in the New York Times, Sept. 12, 2011.

[Disclosure: I represent dozens of H-2B employers who would be hit hard by these wage hikes.  Dan Kowalski] ]]> S-Comm Stats Troubling tag:ijjblog.org,2011:/blog-mt/dan//2.2085 2011-09-12T13:29:22Z 2011-09-12T20:29:47Z Most detained under Secure Communities have scant or no criminal records, data show.JENS MANUEL KROGSTAD in the Des Moines Register, Sept. 10, 2011.... Dan Kowalski www.bibdaily.com Most detained under Secure Communities have scant or no criminal records, data show.

JENS MANUEL KROGSTAD in the Des Moines Register, Sept. 10, 2011. ]]> Hope For Human Trafficking Victims tag:ijjblog.org,2011:/blog-mt/dan//2.2083 2011-09-09T13:09:56Z 2011-09-09T20:10:20Z Dan Kowalski www.bibdaily.com "In 2007, the last year for which there are official estimates, as many as 17,500 people were brought into the United States as human trafficking victims, according to the Department of Justice. Most were used for forced labor or forced sex or both.

And those crime victims have been treated in the same manner as illegal immigrants, people who can be forced to return to countries and circumstances that often helped launch their sad journeys.

But that may be changing."

YVETTE CABRERA in the Orange County Register, Sept. 7, 2011. ]]> DHS Pushes for Border Fence in Floodplain tag:ijjblog.org,2011:/blog-mt/dan//2.2081 2011-09-08T17:17:05Z 2011-09-09T00:17:29Z Dan Kowalski www.bibdaily.com "The Department of Homeland Security is pushing for 14 miles of border wall to be built through Hidalgo and Starr counties even though it could flood U.S. towns and violate a treaty with Mexico."

MELISSA DEL BOSQUE, Texas Observer, Sept. 7, 2011. ]]> Borrowed Hands tag:ijjblog.org,2011:/blog-mt/dan//2.2079 2011-09-08T17:06:45Z 2011-09-09T00:07:08Z Does the H-2A guest worker visa program make it easy to exploit farmworkers?DAVID BACON in California Lawyer magazine, Sept. 2011.... Dan Kowalski www.bibdaily.com Does the H-2A guest worker visa program make it easy to exploit farmworkers?

DAVID BACON in California Lawyer magazine, Sept. 2011. ]]> Deportation Policy Shift Hasn't Trickled Down To Border Patrol tag:ijjblog.org,2011:/blog-mt/dan//2.2077 2011-09-07T16:36:55Z 2011-09-07T23:37:17Z Dan Kowalski www.bibdaily.com "It means the “left hand isn’t aware of what the right hand is doing,” said Carlos Spector, Lara’s El Paso-based attorney. "I think it’s important to note that this [directive] has not reached the lowest levels of ICE... because [Border Patrol agents] are still picking up pregnant women.""

JULIAN AGUILAR on the Texas Tribune, Sept. 7, 2011.]]> Immigration Cases May See Delays As Deportations Prioritized tag:ijjblog.org,2011:/blog-mt/dan//2.2075 2011-09-06T13:15:06Z 2011-09-06T20:15:33Z Dan Kowalski www.bibdaily.com "A shift in prioritizing which immigration cases to prosecute for deportation has created hope, some of it false, among those living in the country illegally."

GINNIE GRAHAM, Tulsa World, Sept. 6, 2011.

]]> Deported To An Unknown 'Home' tag:ijjblog.org,2011:/blog-mt/dan//2.2073 2011-09-04T15:24:03Z 2011-09-04T22:24:25Z The heartbreaking, chilling and infuriating story of refugees deported to homes they've never known, due to retroactive immigration laws.SARAH HOY on CNN, Sept. 1, 2011.... Dan Kowalski www.bibdaily.com The heartbreaking, chilling and infuriating story of refugees deported to homes they've never known, due to retroactive immigration laws.

SARAH HOY on CNN, Sept. 1, 2011. ]]> Bad Record-Keeping Prolongs Detention Of Wrongfully-Deported U.S. Citizen tag:ijjblog.org,2011:/blog-mt/dan//2.2071 2011-09-03T15:08:26Z 2011-09-03T22:08:52Z Dan Kowalski www.bibdaily.com "Andres Robles, 22, was released yesterday evening from the Lafourche Parish jail without explanation, "They just pulled me out and told me I was getting released," he told me today from his parents' home in Thibodeux, Louisiana. He was really happy to be back in his old bedroom, where he would have been living the last few years if DHS had not unlawfully deported him in 2008, ignoring the fact that he had derived U.S. citizenship from his father in 2002."

JACQUELINE STEVENS, Sept. 2, 2011.

]]> Hispanic Republicans of Texas tag:ijjblog.org,2011:/blog-mt/dan//2.2069 2011-09-03T14:10:48Z 2011-09-03T21:11:13Z Dan Kowalski www.bibdaily.com "It’s expected that Latinos will be the majority in Texas in about a decade. Yet the state has one of the lowest Latino voter turnout rates in the country. That is why the GOP is making a play for permanent political dominance in the Lone Star State. In collaboration with the Texas Observer, reporter Melissa del Bosque has this profile of Juan Hernandez and the Hispanic Republicans of Texas PAC."

LatinoUSA, Sept. 2, 2011. ]]> Deportation Reviews Raise Hopes For Some tag:ijjblog.org,2011:/blog-mt/dan//2.2067 2011-08-29T13:23:54Z 2011-08-29T13:24:18Z Dan Kowalski www.bibdaily.com "Now immigrants around the country are trying to find out how the review of nearly 300,000 deportation cases will actually work. The administration has said it would try to identify immigrants considered low-priority — including students, the elderly, victims of crime and people who have lived in the U.S. since childhood.

Many immigrants expressed hope that their cases would qualify, but immigration attorneys and advocates urged caution until more details are known."

PALOMA ESQUIVEL, Los Angeles Times, August 28, 2011.]]> Bay Area Forum Condemns S-Comm tag:ijjblog.org,2011:/blog-mt/dan//2.2065 2011-08-29T00:19:30Z 2011-08-29T00:23:04Z Dan Kowalski www.bibdaily.com "More than 200 people crammed into a meeting room Saturday in this city's heavily Latino Fruitvale District to condemn Secure Communities, the federal deportation program that was billed as targeting "serious convicted criminals" but has ensnared many who committed minor offenses or were never convicted of the crimes on which they were arrested."

LEE ROMNEY, L.A. Times, Aug. 28, 2011. ]]>